Halcyon Princess
by Pixel-0
Summary: [Takes place 3-4 yrs after the '09 escape] Once upon a time, there was a princess who lived in a castle in a faraway land. One day, she and her brothers and sisters escaped the evil king who held them captive there and tried to make their way in the world
1. Innocent Looking Tattoo

In a haphazard pile of sweaty clothing and shivering flesh, my body tumbled out of the rickety bed, while my brain leapt off the pillow to catch up. Unfortunately, my mind didn't have enough speed to reach the pile of bones before it began to dance on the floor, which left me fearing the damage that would come to me if my own mentality couldn't control the humanized frame. 

And, it was, at that time, that I went into the first seizure in over a year. At this point, I had been able to realize that I was no longer in control of my body, thereby, being left to feel the pain it would inflict upon itself, for the flesh knew no better. Bright lights flashed before my eyes as I vainly tried to clutch the mildewing floorboards beneath my dried and cracked fingertips, praying to collect any sanity before I was spotted. The last thing I needed was to have a roommate come barging in and find me seizing on the floor, while my hair exposed the streak of black ink on the back of my neck. But, not just any tattoo, mind you: A genetically engineered barcode that was doomed to follow me around for the rest of my life. 

Fumbling blankly in the darkness, I reached out one hand in the direction that I assumed to be my nightstand. Unfortunately, my arm smacked into the window panel, causing an immediate burning sensation to spread through my already agonized body. Still, I willed myself not to give up, and vainly continued to blindly search. Finally, my hand made contact with the legs of my flimsy nightstand, and the wooden structure collapsed to the ground because I was unable to correctly grasp what I desired. 

Swearing mentally, because the lips I had were unable to form intelligent words, I madly pleaded with my body to get itself back under control before something truly dreadful happened. Then, as I quivered, pulling my aching self across the paneled floor, desperate fingers found the much-needed plastic bottle. I nearly screamed with joy, and immediately, I began to work diligently to open the childproof cap. Normally, I wouldn't have kept the lid on tight, but I had, as of late, and now cursed myself because I was having the most difficult time getting the lid off. Yet, fortunately, I was able to pop the cover off, sending it flying somewhere off into the darkness, where I would retrieve it the next morning. 

I grasped the translucent orange container with madly jarring hands and attempted to shake a few pills out into my palm. Unfortunately, due to the rapid movement, at least ten white capsules landed around me, some in my hand, and even more on the floor. Barely caring just how much Tryptophan I was consuming, I managed to tilt my head back and gulp the numerous pills down without the aid of water.

Slowly, a warm rush spread over my body; a warm sensation of tranquility and peacefulness that reminded me vaguely of the time I had first put my toes into the warm Gulf of Mexico. Heavy eyelids sank shut, causing darkness to collapse in on me. My brain, sensing that there was a weakness in the mental wall, propelled itself back to its proper placement as the commander of my body, and hesitantly, my limbs began to cease their aggravated quivering. And at last, the seizures ended, and I was free of the physical prison.

For a moment, I waited, lying on the floor, my nose pressed harshly into the rank floorboards that smelled of smoke and alcohol, as I debated about whether or not to give a shot at standing. After all, I certainly did not want to rise to my feet, only to come crashing back down again with an abominable force. So, I rested.

About a foot or two away from my pained eyes that were once again adjusting to the night, a large rat scurried along the scratched wall, searching for food. He eyed me suspiciously as if wondering whether or not I was either a threat or a meal. Wrinkling my nose, I hissed like a cat, which wasn't that difficult with the enormous quantities of feline DNA whizzing through my veins, and the rodent squeaked in shock and hurried away. Ah, the pleasures of living in downtown post-pulse Detroit: You never know quite who or what your next door neighbor will be.

As I watched the vermin scurry away into the shadows, I convinced myself that I was well enough to stand. I clutched the mattress of my bed so hard that my fingers created nearly permanent indents, and I swayed, for a moment, willing myself not to fall. Then, I collapsed onto bed, causing the flimsy floor to shake below.

Not surprisingly, one of my roommates, a twiggy redhead, poked her head in, eyes pinched tight from exhaustion. "Somethin' wrong?" she whispered in the late night hours. "I thought I heard somethin'."

"Just a rat."

"A rat?"

"Yeah," I responded, hoping she'd leave me alone in peace because now that the seizures were over, I could sleep in serenity.

Shaking her head, she yawned and closed the door, muttering, "Whatever you say, Laura", and left me alone in the darkness. 

For a minute, I paused, wondering if she would come back, then, finally realizing that she had gone back to bed, I lifted a tentative hand to the back of my neck and felt where my barcode was. And, who would have thought that such an innocent looking tattoo would be the root of some of the greatest physical debilitations that any man has ever faced?


	2. Warm Shower Water

Early, the next morning, before any of my roommates had awoken, I was greeted by the searing sunlight that arrived through my large grimy window. Wincing to avoid it, I turned over on my opposite side, pleading for it to leave and allow me to have a few more hours to sleep. Yet, the burning illumination continued to relentlessly bear down upon me, and I was forced to grab some clean clothes and head for the showers. 

It couldn't have been much later than five in the morning, but I was never one for sleeping much anyway. Then again, I hadn't known anyone in my unit who was prone to napping for long periods of time. Not only were our genetics programmed to keep us from dozing, Lydecker had instilled in us the very motto of, "soldiers don't sleep". Either way one looked at it, I was destined not to rest.

Still, I yawned, plodding down the empty hallway, while rubbing the crusted sleep out of my eyes. When I reached the community, co-ed showers, I neatly bumped the door open with my hip. With precise carefulness, I hung my clothes outside a shower stall, next to my towel. Then, I stepped inside the stall and removed the remainder of my pajamas, dangling those next to the towel and day clothes. Although, in my time at Manticore, it was fully accepted for males and females to take showers together, I had never been one for stripping naked when I was out in the real world. I was constantly on guard, constantly looking over my shoulder, so I figured that any privacy I could find these days was good privacy.

The warm shower water was a welcomed feel so early in the morning, and I ran my fingers through my dark hair, loving the waterfall that cascaded down my back. For a moment, I remembered the time when my unit leader had taken me down to Texas. I was thirteen then, and had already been living on my own for two years since the escape, so I was perfectly able to take care of myself. Nevertheless, my commanding officer took special care in making sure that my other siblings and I were well supervised. Everything was too close for comfort for the captain. Yet, when we had gone down south together, I remembered how we had swam together in the wonderfully warm water, laughing and bobbing for treasures on the bottom of the gulf. After all, it was just fun and games, and nobody would notice a bunch of teenagers splashing around in a tourist town anyhow.

Back in that Detroit shower, I smiled, scrubbing at my dirty face with bare hands, wondering when-if ever-I would go back to that warm water and swim there again. It had been one of the precious rarities when everything had seemed right in the world because Lydecker wasn't looking over our shoulders, and I wasn't frantically worrying about if our barcodes had been spotted. 

Not long after the Texas trip, I had came to Detroit, where I was currently living. Somehow, through false smiling and wistful lies, I managed to move in with two girls who were in their twenties now, and also five years older than me. They took care of me like a little sister, and never once treated me harshly as had been done by other people that I had stayed with. Despite that they were both strippers down at the local bar, they never once asked me to join them or degraded me for my shyness. It was then that I realized just how much I would miss them when I had to leave. As cold-hearted as it may have sounded, it wasn't a question of _if_ I would leave because I knew to be an effective soldier, I would always have to keep on the move; it was merely a question of _when_.

Sighing heavily, I turned off the shower, watching the tendrils of steam curl upward toward the light and poked one hesitant hand out, beyond the shower curtain, fumbling blindly to find my towel. Just as I had felt my pair of jeans, the towel touched my hand coming from below, where it wasn't supposed to be, and a deep voice said, "Here."

I jumped approximately my own height and forced down the urge to scream in shock. Furiously fumbling, I wrapped the shower curtain around myself and poked my wet head out to see who had attempted to hand the towel to me. Yet, my distressed anxiety subsided to anger, when I saw that my captain was sitting on one of the benches, lazily clutching my towel between his fingers.

"You want this?" he asked.

Snapping it away from him, I wrapped it tightly around my body and stepped out of the shower, making sure that no inappropriate skin was showing that didn't need to be seen. As I came out of the stall, he rose to his large feet, so that we stood at a rough eye level; he was a couple inches taller than I was.

"What are you doing here?" I whispered, praying that someone wouldn't decide to interrupt this conversation.

"Time to get moving."

"But-"

"Look, I know you enjoy it here and all, but you can't stay here much longer. Somebody tipped Lydecker off that there's an X5 in Detroit, and his men are all around."

"Who?"

"Who? How am I supposed to know _'who'_? If I knew _'who'_ it was, I would've killed them off a long time ago."

Exasperated, I sighed, realizing that he was right, and I needed to leave if I valued my life and freedom. "Fine," I replied, "when do you want to leave, Zack?" 

"As soon as you're dressed. Don't even think of going back up to your room to get anything. Simply take what you have, and we'll leave then. I think I may have some extra clothing in the Jeep I snatched."

"Where are we going?"

"Somewhere out on the west coast…Don't worry about it," he replied, handing me my clothes. "Now, get dressed, Tinga, we have a long trip ahead of us."


	3. Many Hushed Minutes

The window, despite the fact it was rolled down to its maximum limits, gave little-if any-comforting air from the sweltering heat. My hair was still damp even though we had left Detroit about four hours ago and were traveling somewhere through Ohio or Indiana. The humidity was absolutely unbearable, but Zack refused to turn on the air conditioning, arguing that gas didn't need to be wasted on a luxury feature such as a coolant. He drove with aimless anticipation, letting the wind flap through his mop of blond hair, for _he_ certainly didn't have to worry about long hair sticking to his back and horrid body odor. Guys could just get away with things like that.

After many hushed minutes of silence-with the exception of my pleading for the air conditioning-I turned to Zack and asked him how long he speculated it would take to reach my new home. 

Being Zack, he shrugged as if he really didn't care, but naturally, he had everything planned down to the last second. "Four…Six days, maybe."

"Longer for breaks."

He glanced over at me, peering through a lock of dingy blond hair, before centering his eyes back on the road. "Breaks?" he echoed incredulously.

"Yeah, to go to the bathroom, get a shower, eat…You know, live like a normal human."

"Problem with that is: We're not normal."

"Do you always have to be so pessimistic?" I asked, giving him a playful grin.

"No; I'm a realist, not a pessimist."

"You're a pessimistic realistic, if anything."

Zack shook his head, but said nothing, for we both knew that I had struck a point. Beneath his massive pale hands, he gripped the black steering wheel loosely in one, while letting his opposite fingers cradle his angled chin. Although he was only sixteen, he appeared to be far older to the casual observer. He wore a pair of dark blue jeans, which were slightly too small-but he had little fashion sense to either notice or care-accompanied by a plain worn blue T-shirt with sleeves that were short enough to give the appearance of a muscle tank top. A black leather jacket, I had noticed earlier, was strewn across the back seat, where other miscellaneous clothing and food articles sat, waiting patiently. His hair was slightly longer than most teenagers preferred, but Zack-needless to say-did not view himself as a "normal teenager". He was big brother. Captain. The man in charge of nearly a dozen other people's lives. And he would not let himself fail.

"How are the others?" I asked, off-handedly, hoping that Zack-who knew all-would give me a taste of information about my rogue siblings.

"Fine," he muttered as he pressed the gas pedal down with a dark boot so that we could pass a slow moving semi on the highway.

"How's Zane?" 

"Busy."

I groaned to myself. If I had to travel like this for five days or more with him giving just one-word responses, then I might as well start walking on my own.

"Anything else besides 'busy'?" I pressed.

"I haven't seen him in awhile," Zack snapped back, pressing the accelerator down harder to accommodate his growing annoyance. Yet, he didn't intimidate me in the least, so I continued to question him.

"And Max, how's she?"

"Lonely."

"We all are," I sighed.

"Yeah…"

We lapsed back into the accustomed silence, which I was starting to dread. Agitated, I began to pick at a fraying pocket on my light blue jeans, praying that four days would pass sooner than I hoped. Unless Zack started drinking pure caffeine to liven up the conversations, I was going to be virtually talking to myself. Still, I gave it another shot.

"Do you think we'll ever see each other again? I mean, not just me and Max, but everybody. You know, Jondy, Zane, Krit and the rest of the gang?" I asked him.

He shrugged, braking rapidly to avoid slamming into the rear end of a slow moving station wagon, which caused him to curse under his breath. Once the other vehicle received the hint that there was a bigger Jeep on its butt, it began to pick up the pace, leading Zack to develop road rage by tailgating it with rapid fury. After several minutes of the stunt, the little car pulled over, angrily blaring its horn so that Zack could whiz right past it; he was pushing ninety miles an hour. 

"Do you-" I began again, but he cut me off.

"Tinga," he responded with a hint of alien sadness in his voice. "You're one of the few that even know I take care of our unit. Max doesn't know. Jondy doesn't know. Krit might know, but he never tries to go any deeper. Ben knows, but he doesn't care. You, Brin, and Zane are some of the few."

"Oh."

"I don't know if we are all going to be together again or not. I mean, I know that you, Max and Jondy, were all really close, but I'm not putting faith into something that probably won't happen. A grouping of rogue X5s is not what we need if Lydecker decides to come after us and take us back to Manticore. Do you understand that? The more of us in a concentrated area, the greater risk we run of getting captured."

"I understand," I replied, wiping sweat off of my upper lip. "It's just that…Well…"  
"Just what?" 

"I dream about it sometimes, thinking of how wonderful it would be if we were all together again. It's been, what? Four years? Going on five since we escaped? They're the only family I have, Zack-including you-and I just would really like to see them again. Talk to them. Hug them. Good old family stuff."

He sighed again, this time with great heaviness as if it took all of his potent energy just to lift his diaphragm off the chest cavity. "Maybe," he responded, reaching over and patting me gently on the knee with his powerful hand. "Maybe someday, we will."


End file.
